Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
What's that Mango?
Did you hear about that pigeon that sold at auction for over a million bucks?
You know, I know you may find this surprising, but I actually don't keep up with the world of pigeon auctions. But but seriously, though, did somebody actually pay a million dollars for a pigeon?
It's actually slightly better than that. Somebody paid one point four million dollars for a pigeon, and they did it on this site. It's an auction site called Pippa, which is short for Pigeon Paradise, which almost makes all of us better. But to be fair, this was no ordinary bird. This high priced Belgian pigeon is actually an esteemed champion racer and his name is Armando. He's five years old. He's widely considered the best of the best long distance
pigeons in the world. So for the buyer, having a champion bird as young as Armando means plenty of chances to breed him and to hopefully pass on his traits to future flyers.
You know, I actually don't think I realized that investing in pigeons could be this lucrative.
I know you should have got into it years ago. Kid, most of us don't give pigeons nearly as much credit as they deserve. I mean, the ones we're used to seeing can look drab or dirty. But the truth is pigeons are exceptionally smart animals and they've been using that brain power for the good of mankind for thousands of years. So in light of that, I thought we could use today's episode to give pigeons their due finally, from their roles in scientific breakthroughs to all the times they delivered
mail for us. So there's a lot to cover. Let's dive in.
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and always I'm joined by my good friend mangesh Hot Ticketerter. Now on the other side of that soundproof glass showing off his dance skills by doing the cou coo pigeon. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, and I have to say Bert may have invented this dance and may have made it famous on Sesame Street
back in the seventies. I think it was, but Tristan, I don't know about you mego, I feel like he's perfected it.
He really has, you know, gave actually sent me some research on this on doing the pigeon And apparently in the original opening, Burt is just hanging out watching home movies of pigeons projected on his wall, and then a few seconds into the footage, he tells the viewer, I love pigeons more than anything else in the world besides oatmeal, and then he busts out doing this whole choreograph, dance and routine, and I just don't remember any of that, but it sounds so good.
Well, I can't speak to his oatmeal obsession, but Bert's right about pigeons. I mean, they are much cooler than we think. Just as an example, I was reading this week that pigeons are actually capable of understanding abstract concepts including space and time. Are you with me on this? It's pretty interesting, So it's definitely not something that you'd
guess just by looking at them. But a couple of years back, there was this team of scientists at the University of Iowa that showed just how smart pigeons really are. So the team tested a group of pigeons by placing them in front of computer screens, and then they would show them one of two lines, either this six centimeter line or a twenty four centimeter line, and each of the lines was paired with its own symbol, So anytime the pigeons saw a line, they were supposed to peck
the symbol that corresponded with the correct length. So whenever the birds got it right, the scientists fed them this treat is a way to reinforce that they had chosen, you know, the correct answer on this.
Which shows that pigeons can tell the difference between different line lengths. But you said pigeons perceived time as.
Well, right, Yeah, So this is actually where things get really interesting, because the scientists tested the pigeons not only on the length of the lines, but also on how long they were displayed for, so either two seconds or eight seconds, and the results showed that pigeons connect the concepts of space and time in this really interesting way. So whenever the birds saw a short line displayed for eight seconds, they would peck the symbol meant for a
long line. Because the line had been displayed for a longer period of time, the pigeons actually judged it to be longer. In length than it really was. And this way of thinking also persistent when the birds were tested on long lines being displayed. So anytime the pigeons saw a long line displayed for just two seconds, they would peck the symbol meant for an eight second duration. Because the line was longer in length, the pigeons thought it existed for a greater amount of time.
So that would mean pigeons actually perceived time in relation to space, right, which is what humans do, like using the number of people in a line to gauge how long a weight might be, for instance.
Yeah, that's exactly right, And studies have shown that elephants and a few other primates tend to connect these concepts as well. The only thing weird here is that pigeons actually lacked the part of the brain that processes space and time that other animals have. So pigeons are making these same abstract connections that we are, but they're doing so through some other method that we actually haven't figured out.
Yet, which is pretty amazing. It actually reminds me of this study I read about a while back where this Japanese psychologist who's named Shigeru Watanabe. He trained a bunch of pigeons to distinguish between paintings done by Picasso and one's done by Monet, and the birds got so good at recognizing the two different styles that they could even sort out works of Cubism and Impressionism done by other artists.
It kind of makes you wonder if they preferred one style over the other when they were looking at.
I mean, it's funny because the same researcher later conducted a different pigeon experiment where he trained a group of them to judge the artwork of elementary students. And apparently he showed the birds two dozen paintings made by students in Tokyo, and he taught the pigeons which of the paintings could be considered good and which ones should be labeled bad. I mean he did this by taking the grades assigned by the school's teachers and a panel of
other adults. And anyway, once the pigeons had a grasp on what made a good painting or a bad painting, they were presented ten new paintings, and amazingly, the pigeons were able to correctly identify which of these paintings would get low marks by the panel and what's interesting is that the findings suggests that pigeons can naturally categorize things based on shape, color, and even texture, which is impressive because you know, not a lot of other species have that trait.
Yeah, that's true. I guess it's one more unexpected thing we have in common with.
Them, Right, and this list keeps getting longer. Apparently there's one more thing. Pigeons are the only non primates we know with ability to recognize letters. So in a twenty sixteen study this comes out of New Zealand, a team successfully trained four pigeons to recognize dozens of English words, including whether or not they were spelled correctly, and the smartest pigeon in the group learned to staggering fifty eight words, which it was able to distinguish from roughly one thousand
made up words. In contrast, the dullest pigeon, or maybe the least motivated of these birds, still managed to build an impressive twenty six word vocabulary during its time of the lab.
All right, so these birds weren't actually reading the words, right, They they didn't learn what the words meant or anything. They just memorized what the words look like. Is that right?
Yeah, that's right, So they didn't have the meanings. It was just spellings. But you know, wild pigeons are smart enough that they can learn all these neat tricks. It's not like they're ever really called upon to be art critics in the wild. And at the end of the day, it does sort of seem like pigeons have all these powers of perception, but maybe aren't living up to their potential in the wild.
I mean, but there's got to be a reason that they're capability these skills when you think, yeah, I mean, it's.
True biologically, but in all the experiments we mentioned, the pigeons were kind of making distinctions based on things that humans taught them, like impressionist art has all these features, or the word banana looks in a spell like this.
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine there are cases where recognizing visual patterns might help a pigeon, you know, forage for food or a beda predator like and maybe one notices their nest isn't the way they left it and that tips them off that something dangerous is in the area or something like that. But going back to what you said about humans guiding and rewarding pigeons behavior, what's funny is that's something we unconsciously do, like including outside
the laboratory setting. For instance, back in twenty eleven, there were these two researchers in Paris, and they discovered that pigeons can remember the appearance and behavior of specific people. So here's how it went. Over the course of multiple sessions, these two researchers went to a local park and they fed this same flock of pigeons. So the first time they go out, one researcher fed the birds and then
just stood there while they ate this food. I Meanwhile, the other researcher put some food down and then immediately turned hostile and chased the pigeons away. I'm sure everybody else in the park was enjoying this. But the researchers then repeated the experiment again and again, except during the subsequent visits, neither of them chased away the pigeons. And
here's the thing. The pigeons actually remembered which researcher had been nice to them and which one had showed them away, And so whenever the researchers returned, the pigeons continuously avoided that researcher who had shunned them. In the first place, even though he hadn't done anything like that on any other occasion.
Huh, that's pretty interesting. So what kind of like visual cues were the pigeons picking up, Like was the hostile researcher bigger or more intimidating or facial hair like, what was the distinction?
Yeah, when I was reading about this, that was what I had assumed as well, is that maybe one researcher just look less threatening or was wearing more attractive color or something like that. But they actually accounted for all of this. In the experiment. The researchers were the same sex, age, build,
skin color, They dressed similarly. It's true that each wore a different colored lab coat, but you know, I mean, they also switched lab coats on different visits, and the pigeons could still always tell which researcher had been hostile on that first encounter. So the most likely explanation for this, according to experts, is that pigeons recognize the researchers by
their faces. So not only does that show how pigeons might use their perceptive powers in the wild, it also shows that pigeons are really smart about which visual information to keep track of. Like, you know, take the different colored lab codes for instance. It seems like the obvious feature to remember, like since a lab code would have you know, covered like ninety percent of their body. Yeah, but it's like our version of feathers, you would think
at least. And yet the pigeons zeroed in on the researchers' facial traits, which is something that couldn't easily be changed day to day. And so according to these researchers, that distinction is likely something pigeons have picked up on, you know, over their years of living in cities and around other humans.
Which makes a ton of sense. And I'm actually glad you're bringing up that city connection. We've talked a lot so far about the science of pigeons, So what do you say we change gears in and talk a little pigeon history and how they came to cities in the first place.
That sounds good. But before we get into that, let's take a quick break.
And you're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about all the amazing things you never knew about the humble pigeon, And speaking of which, one thing I was surprised to learn this week is just how far back our relationship with pigeons actually go. For instance, archaeologists have uncovered figurines, mosaics, and other works of art depicting pigeons at dig sites in modern day i Raq, and those artifacts are thought to date as far back as forty
five hundred BCE. There's also evidence that pigeons were a staple food in the Middle East and Europe for thousands of years, and when you take all of that together, it's likely that the common rock pigeon, which is the species you find in most cities, may have been the very first bird that humans domesticated.
And if I remember it, did that happen mainly because pigeons were an easy way to source meat or something.
Well, I think that was certainly their main appeal at first, while game was often seen hard to come by in Mesopotamia, so these protein rich rock pigeons would have been a godsend in all likelihood, though some hungry ancient farmer probably noticed the bird's milling around his crops and decided it would be better if he let the birds roost on
his farm rather than drive him away. But one of the side effects from spending so much time in close quarters was that humans started to take liking to the birds, and not just the way they tasted. Against all odds, humans started seeing reflections of their own humanity and pigeons, for instance, Unlike other animals, the pigeons were monogamous and couples working together to raise their offspring. They were seen as intelligent and fiercely protective when necessary, but also peaceful
and calm when left to their own devices. And all these cultures kind of adapted the pigeon as a religious symbol or a deity as a result. For example, there are three different goddesses that were symbolized by the pigeons, ishtar, Aphrodite, and Venus, which spans Babylonia and Greece and Roman culture. And in Christian iconography, which I know a ton about, the pigion is used to represent the Holy Spirit, or at least that's what I read now.
I know we probably have a lot of listeners thinking here that you're getting your birds mixed up, because didn't those religions use doves as symbols, not pigeons.
So prepare to have your mind blown, because scientifically speaking, the words dove and pigeon refer to the same animal. They're actually one of three hundred eight different bird species in the columbide family.
All right, So you're telling me that the pure white dove, a universal symbol of peace, is really just another kind of pigeon.
And vice versa. The gray rock pigeon you saw in the park the other day is also known as a rock dove.
All right, So what about the birds themselves, Like, how did every city in America wind up overrun by pigeons? Yeah?
I mean overrun's actually a good word for it. Rock pigeons are actually an invasive species. They were originally native only to Eurasia and northern Africa, but that changed in the early sixteen hundreds when European settlers like the French, introduced the birds to North America for the very first time, and the domesticated birds have been brought along as a source of food or in some cases, just to be
raised as a hobby. But somewhere along the way, many of them escaped to cities and made new homes from themselves on the ledges of buildings, which probably reminded them of the cliffs back home that they'd nest in the wild on. And from that point on, pigeons became a fixture in American towns and cities, really thriving in parts
because pigeons aren't picky eaters. They don't have special diets like many other birds, so whatever trash or leftovers they found on city streets that kind of suited their taste just fine.
Which I don't know why I always think about this quote, but there was that thirty Rock line where Tracy Jordan sees a pigeon eating trash and he just goes stop eating people's old French fries. Pigeon have some self respect, don't you know? You can fly, which is so good.
But that lack of self respect has benefited them over the years. The world pigeon population is estimated at four hundred million, with seven million pigeons living in New York City alone. That's almost a bird for every New Yorker minus the bronx.
I was going to say, the population in the area is about that. That's pretty crazy. And all those birds in the US are descended from on that initial crop of European runaways.
Yeah, they're all imported, but to be fair, that wasn't always the case. So when rock pigeons were first brought to American chores, in the seventeenth century, the continent actually had its own thriving indigenous pigeon species, and that's the passenger pigeon. And according to mental Floss, as many as five billion passenger pigeons lived here during the colonial era, accounting for somewhere between twenty five to forty percent of
all birds in the entire country. However, as you probably know, that's not the case anymore. Over, hunting and habitat loss, all of that kind of brought an end to the passenger pigeon in the early twentieth century, with the last of their kind, this domesticateid female named Martha, passing away in nineteen fourteen.
All right, this is probably the strangest transition that I'm going to make today, but you queued it up so nicely for me. So, speaking of dead pigeons, one thing I've always wondered is, if New York is so chock full of them, then how are there not dead ones everywhere you look?
Like?
At least, not that I'm complaining about this, but if you have thought about that.
You know I haven't thought about it. But now I'm curious what you learn, Like, did you get an answer for this?
Well? It turns out that pigeon corpses really are something of a rarity in American cities, and the biggest reason for this is that the sheer number of predators that pigeons are up against in urban areas is greater than you would think. Like, as someone at the Smithsonian once put it, rats, cats, raccoons, foxes, possums, they all love them some pigeon, is what they said.
That is Sasha Smithsonian thing Smithsonian. So you're saying most pigeons get eaten up by predators, But what about like the old timers. I mean, there have to be some pigeons that make it to old age. So where did those guys end up?
Well, you're definitely talking about the minority here. I mean, most wild pigeons survive for five or six years on average, and that's compared to fifteen years or even longer in captivity. So the ones that aren't eaten, like the lucky ones, who have a lot more control over their deaths, they tend to choose these peaceful nooks and crannies for their final resting places. So maybe the air ducts of a building or the corner ledge of a skyscraper. Some whether it's you know, not quite as visible.
So I guess it really does depend on where you look.
Yeah, I mean, you've got to really want to find a dead pigeon. I guess.
It's a heck of a scavenger. But you know, the whole time we've been talking about this, I keep thinking of that story about Nixon's inaugurations. Do you remember this one?
I don't think I do remember. This.
Apparently had a tough go at his first inauguration in nineteen sixty nine, like the Vietnam War was in full swing, and Nixon's motorcade wound up being pelted with tomatoes and rocks. So when his second inauguration came around in seventy three, Nixon remembered how messy things had gotten the last time, and he wanted to take every possible precaution to avoid another embarrassment. And this is how far he went. Right.
He had his people paint the branches of trees along the parade route with this special chemical called roost no more. It was this guy chemical that was supposed to make a pigeon's feet so itchy that it wouldn't want to above the motor kit. I guess, And yeah, and obviously he was trying to avoid droppings falling on the car. But as you can probably tell about the fact that I'm telling you this story, things did not go as planned. So for starters, the pigeons didn't mind the itchiness of
roofs no more, I guess. And what's worse, they didn't mind the taste of it either. So so many pigeons ate this highly toxic paste that the day of the parade, the entire route was like littered with dozens of dead and dying pigeons, which is so much worse than dirty windshields.
Oh no kidding. Can you imagine being there? That would have been pretty brute, so weird. All right, Well, now that we've seen the time when pigeons and humans didn't get along so well, I feel like we should take a look at a few examples of the opposite, you know, the times when pigeons and people lived in perfect harmony.
Yeah, let's do that, But first another break.
Welcome back to part time genius. Somego. I know it can be dicey to try and pin down the etymology of a phrase. Any idiom you think of can probably have a half dozen or so false origin stories. But there is one that I came across this week that was just too interesting not to talk about it. So you've heard the term stool pigeon.
Before, right, sure, like an informer or rat or whatever.
That's right. And it's kind of a strange phrase when you think about it, because number one, how does a stool fit into any of this? And number two, pigeons aren't that talkative and you know, as far as birds go, they're actually pretty quiet.
So I hadn't thought about this before, but I'm pretty curious where does the term actually come from.
Well, the working theory is that the phrase is this throwback to an old sixteenth century hunting practice where pigeons were used as decoys to lure in larger birds. As for the stool part, there are a couple of options here. One is that these decoy pigeons were tied to actual stools, like the idea of being that the live pigeon would flutter in place and catch the eye of these other animals. And then the other option is that stool is really a corruption of this word stole, which is an old
word for tree stump. It's spelled stoa l e. And in either case of the stool was whatever you tie the decoy pigeon to, and then sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds, Americans started applying the term to a different type of decoy. Those would be these police informers who hung around the criminal world or the criminal underworld. Really, and I'm not sure who first made that connection or why, but that doesmv where it might have come from.
Well, pigeons may not be very talkative themselves, but they are pretty amazing when it comes to delivering other people's messages, and that's thanks to their innate sense of direction. You know, pigeons can find their way back home from pretty much anywhere, even if scientists still haven't figured out how they do it. Yeah.
I actually remember we covered some of these theories way back in that Superhero Animal episode, So if you guys are curious about that, definitely check it out.
Definitely. And despite all the mystery around their navigational skills, the reality is that humans have been using pigeons as messengers since at least as far back as three thousand BCE. The ancient Greeks used trained pigeons to communicate the results of the Olympics, and as you might recall, from our Genghi's Kan episode, the Mongols developed a whole pigeon based postal system to help connect the growing empire.
Yeah, and from what I was reading this week, they weren't the only ones who put pigeons in charge of their post. So the birds were apparently used to carry mail in the Middle East. This was as far back as the fifth century BCE, and pigeon posts still existed in some regions until as recently as the early twentieth century.
You take New Zealand's Great Barrier Island for instance. They relied on a handful of competing pigeon postal services for the better part of a decade in the late eighteen hundreds, and since the island is about sixty miles away from the mainland train pigeons were the fastest way for residents to communicate back and forth. They even issued these special stamps that were only valid for pigeon posts and instantly They're believed to be the first examples of airmail stamps in the world.
So what about telegraphs, though, weren't those around in the late eighteen hundreds?
They were, but you know, even with that, service was spotty, and the birds were pretty resilient. Like in wartime telegraph wires could be easily cut and you never knew, you know, who might be listening in on this, you know, if they were kind of tapping the line or something. So pigeon messengers became this crucial means of communication. Actually, one famous instance comes from a carrier pigeon named cher Ami that flew for the US Army in France. This was
back during World War One. Now, Shaami delivered twelve important messages during his military career, but on his final mission, this was October of nineteen eighteen, the pigeon was shot, actually shot both in the breast and the leg by enemy fire. And despite this injury, Sharami flew back to his roost with the message capsule still tied to his wounded leg.
It's just unbelievable, which is crazy, but what the message said.
It was from a battalion of one hundred and ninety four soldiers who had been isolated from other American forces, and people just assumed that they were dead. And so thanks to share on me, the army learned of the soldiers whereabouts and they were able to get them to safety back behind American lines. And I mean, I know, in the bird's mind he wasn't trying to rescue a bunch of soldiers. He just wanted to make it back home alive. But I mean, it's still pretty incredible.
I mean, it is a little surprising. The enemies were like clever enough to slice telegraph wires, but they didn't think to like bring in a few hawks to like feed on the pigeons and disrupt the communication. It feels like a simpler solution. But you know, here's another thing I had no idea about until this episode. Do you know that two pigeons unknowingly helped establish the Big Bang theory.
I hate to ask this question, but are we talking about the sitcom or like the model of the universe, because one of these seems way more plausible than the.
Other, so weirdly, it is the latter. Before I get into how the pigeons fit into this, let me give some quick background. So back in nineteen sixty four, two scientists in New Jersey, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, were experimenting with their radio telescope and they were trying to measure the minimum brightness of the sky. But to their dismay, something was interfering with their readings, and whatever it was,
it was producing a pronounced hissing noise. Now spoilers, what they actually heard that day was an ancient cosmic background radiation, or as Smithsonian calls it, quote and echo of the universe at a very early moment after its birth. So, although they didn't know this at the time, Wilson and Penzeus had just found what would ultimately become the first proof for the Big Bang theory. And in the moment,
though the men weren't sure what they were hearing. They thought it could be a stray signal from nearby New York, or maybe their equipment was faulty. It really could have been anything, but at one point, the most likely suspects were actually a couple of pigeons that had set up shop in the antenna array, and when the scientists discovered
the bird's roost, their hopes were dashed. It was starting to look like this hissing sound was really just this embarrassing revelation that it was a couple of pigeons mucking about their instruments.
I kind of love that this is what it boiled down to, Like, it's either the afterglow of the birth of the universe, or you know, some birds just going into the bathroom. It's one of the other. Who knows, I know.
But Wilson and Phentzias couldn't rule it out, like they had to get to the bottom of this. And so here's how Robert Wilson later described what they did. Quote, we took the pigeons, put them in a box and mailed them as far away as we could in the company mail to a guy who fancied pigeons. He looked at them and said, these are junk pigeons and let them go. But before long they were right back again.
Wait, so the same pigeons came back in like after being mailed across the country.
Yeah, because they have those homing systems, so they can find their way back from thousands of miles away or whatever. But you know, thankfully, the scientists were eventually able to get the array cleaned out, and after a year or so of experiments, they concluded that the hiss they heard was indeed cosmic radiation and not defecating pigeons. The birds
confusing contra bbution to history, though, hasn't been forgotten. And if you go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum today you can see the actual metal trap that Wilson and Penzius used to trap the squatter pigeons some fifty five years ago.
That is quite the honor, and I feel like a well deserved one. So what do you say we end on that note and get right into the fact off.
So here's a quick one. Because birds such as pigeons have a much higher threshold for detecting movement, they would likely see a movie shown at today's industry rate as a series of flashing slides like the frames we use. Twenty four frames per second is fast enough to give the illusion of fluid movement to our eyes, but pigeon vision has to be able to see signs of fast moving prey, so twenty four frames per second is just way too slow for the birds to perceive.
All right, Well, pigeon vision may be based on ultra quick movement, but do you know what's even faster than a pigeon? Mango?
A lot of things.
Okay, yeah, a lot of things are. But I was specifically talking here about bees because apparently, back in eighteen eighty eight, a pigeon fancier and bee keeper had this friendly little contest in Germany. They challenged each other's pet of choice to this grueling three and a half mile race, and when you know it, the bee won by a full twenty five seconds.
That is impressive. But I mostly want to know how this contest happened in the first place, Like how bored must these guys have been to like organizer race? Like that? It's a question ptty strange, But okay, So since we're on the subject of pigeon losses, I have to tell you that there are catfish in France that have learned to lunge out of the water in an effort to
hunt pigeons. And while the catfish aren't the most adept hunters on land, as you might imagine, they do pretty well for themselves in the water, and their success rate of catching pigeons is an impressive twenty eight percent.
That's a lot higher than I would have guessed, to be honest with you. Since we're talking to pigeons, I couldn't leave the episode without, of course talking about Nicolette Tesla, who you might remember was totally obsessed with pigeons. I feel like that fact always has to come up here. And one female pigeon in particular, so Tesla once said of her, I love that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me as long as I had her. There was a purpose to my life such romance.
You know, I was looking up scientists and pisions this week too, and one thing I didn't realize was Darwin was also obsessed with pigeons. He belonged to a London fancy pigeon club, and he owned a flock. And in fact, Mental Floss reports his nineteen sixty eight book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, has two full chapters on pigeons. Meanwhile, dogs and cats share a single chapter.
Yeah, that seems fair, all right, Well here's one I really like. This artist named Laurel roth Hope Crochet's suits for urban pigeons.
Well, I already like where this is going. Tell me more.
Well, she basically creates these disguises that pigeons can where to look like extinct birds. It's basically, you know, coseplay for pigeons, I guess, But I guess it's also to raise awareness for what our parks could have looked like if we were a little more careful with nature.
I like that idea, and I do hope I get to see some of these extinct not extinct birds in the city, and I like the fact, so I'm going to give it to you this week.
Well, thank you so much, and it definitely wasn't easy, but I kind of liked that fact. But that does it for today's episode of part Time Genius from Gabe, Tristan, Mango, loll and me. Thanks so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.